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IPriee Twenty-Five Cents. 

SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH: 
All Days Alike Holy. 



A CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE REV. DR. 

SUNDERLAND, WM. HENRY #URR, 

AND OTHERS. 



HOW THE EARLY FATHERS, REFORMERS, AND OTHER 

EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS REGARDED 

SUNDAY AND THE SABBATH. 

Origin of the Christian Sabbath. 

ORIGIN AND ABROGATION OF THE JEWISH SABBATH. I 



_ 



Oj 



WASHINGTON : 
SOLD BY W. H. St O. H. MORRISON, BOOl^«-LEIL& r - 

No. 47.-J Pennsylvania avenue. 
1872. 






WASHINGTON 



SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLT. 



Controversy Between the Kev. Dr. Sunderland, 
Wm. Henry Burr, and Others. 



In the Washington Daily Chronicle of October 10, 1871, a 
sermon was published, two columns in length, with the follow- 
ing heading : 

THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

DISCOURSE BY DR. SUNDERLAND IN HIS CHURCH ON SUNDAY MORN- 
ING, OCTOBER 8, 1871— A NEW VIEW OP THE QUESTION — THE 
JEWISH WEEK SET ASIDE — THE CHRISTIAN WEEK ESTABLISHED— 
THE SABBATH IS ALWAYS "THE SEVENTH DAY" OP THE ESTAB- 
LISHED WEEK — AS REQUIRED BY THE MORAL OBLIGATION OP THE 
DECALOGUE. 

The only portion of the discourse which it is necessary for the 
present purpose to reproduce is the following : 

In Acts xiii, 14, it is stated that Paul and his company, hav- 
ing arrived at Antioch, "went into the synagogue on the Sab- 
bath day and sat down.' 1 ' The Sabbath day here mentioned 
was undoubtedly a ""Jewish Sabbath." In the 44th verse it is 
said: "And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city 
together to hear the word of God." The Greek phrase for " the 
next Sabbath day," as our English translation has it in this 
verse, is: tote crchomeno Sabhato — that is, "on the approach* 
coming Sabbath." This was likewise undoubtedly a 
"Jewish Sabbath," occurring after the six secular days which 
followed the Sabbath mentioned in the 14th verse. JSut what 
had occurred in the meantime in the synagogue and in the city? 
What had occurred between these two consecutive Jewish 



2 SUNDAY XOT THE SABBATH I 

Sabbaths? . , . . Some Gentiles, who had either wit- 
nessed or heard of the scene which had transpired, and who had 
become deeply interested in the declaration of Paul, besought 
that these words might be preached to them, (not, as in our own 
version, "the next Sabbath," but as in the original,) "on the 
intervening Sabbath," or " the Sabbath between." This was the 
request not of Jews, but of Gentiles, who paid no special regard 
to Jewish ordinances, and who were doubtless aware of the new 
institution and custom of the observance of "the Christian Sab- 
bath" or " the Lord's day," and who here, for the want of better 
terms, described it as "the Sabbath between," or "the inter- 
vening Sabbath" — that is, the Sabbath coming between two 
Jewish Sabbaths. This was a matter of fact, and while the 
record is silent as to whether Paul complied with this request 
of the Gentiles — though in all probability he did — yet one thing 
is beyond dispute, if we read the account in the Greek, and 
that is, the Sabbath mentioned in the 42d verse is not identica 
with that mentioned in the 44th verse. The conclusion is inevi- 
table — one was " a Christian Sabbath," the other was a "Jewish 
Sabbath." 

On the next day a communication appeared in the Chronicle, 
as follows : 

AN INTERESTING QUESTION — DR. SUNDERLAND'S POSITION ON " THE 

CHRISTIAN SABBATH " DISPUTED. 
To the Editor of the Chronicle: 

In the discourse of the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, which appeared 
in yesterday's Chronicle, he draws the " inevitable conclusion" 
that Paul preached to the Gentiles on a " Christian Sabbath," 
because in Acts xiii, 42, the Greek words " to metazu salhaton" 
mean " on the Sabbath between," or "on the intervening Sab- 
bath," and not " on the next Sabbath," as rendered in our Bi- 
bles. It is true that the marginal translation in our reference 
Bibles sustains [favors] the Doctor's view. But if he will exam- 
ine one of the latest and best authorities, namely, the Greek 
Testament, by Henry Alford, D. D., of Cambridge, England, 
1868, (which may be found at Ballantyne's book-store,) he will 
see that this marginal translation is not sustained. Therefore, 
unless we discard this latest standard authority, we cannot ac- 
cept Dr. Sunderland's "inevitable conclusion." Moreover, his 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 3 

admission that " the record is silent as to whether Paul did 
preach on a ' Sabbath between,'" must be taken in favor of the 
rendering in our Bibles, viz : " the next Sabbath " of the Jews. 

The attempt to prove that Paul observed the so-called Chris- 
tian Sabbath is futile. In Acts xx, 7, we read that on one oc- 
casion, when the disciples came together to break bread on the 
first day of the week, Paul preached to them, and the preaching 
and breaking of bread continued till daybreak, i. e., about ten 
hours into the second day of the week, which began at sunset. 
But this breaking of bread was a daily occurrence at the first, 
(Acts ii, 46,) and therefore proves nothing as to the sanctity of 
any particular day. The proof, therefore, fails that Paul ob- 
served a Christian Sabbath. On the contrary, during a ministry 
of twenty years he constantly preached in the synagogues on the 
Jewish Sabbath, (Acts ix, 20 ; xiii, 14, 44; xiv, 1 ; xvii, 2, 10, 
17; xviii, 4, 11, 19; xix, 18.) 

If space were allowed me, I can prove that the following emi- 
nent Christian authorities are against the observance of both the 
Jewish and Christian Sabbath as a sacred day : Justin Martyr, 
Tertullian, Eusebius, Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Neander, 
Jeremy Taylor, and many others. W. H. B 

This brought out a reply from Dr. S., followed by a further 
correspondence, as reproduced below. 

HAVE WE A CHRISTIAN SABBATH? — A PROPOSAL TO U W. H. B." PROM 
DR. SUNDERLAND. 

To the Editor of the Chronicle: 

It is easy to show the fallacy of the comments of " W. H. B." 
on my discourse in last Tuesday's Chronicle. But not " to make 
two bites of a cherry," and to save the daily journals of the city 
the burden of an extensive and gratuitous publication, I have this 
proposition to submit to " W. II. B./' (he must give his full 
name.) Let us correspond upon the subject privately at first, and 
when each has concluded what he wishes to say, let us then pub- 
lish the whole correspondence in pamphlet form. 

I would not propose this labor and expense did I not feel so 
deeply the importance of the truth in regard to the Christian Sab- 
bath. It is high time the present generation should know whether 
we have left to us a Sabbath of divine authority and perpetual 



4 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

obligation, or whether the whole Christian world has been hood- 
winked and deceived by a stupendous imposition which has been 
palmed upon them without any Scriptural authority whatever. 

I think I have a right to expect an affirmative reply to the 
above proposition, or in some way its equivalent. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

REPLY OF " W. H. B." TO DR. SUNDERLAXD. 

Much as I desire to see the question of the Christian Sab- 
bath discussed, I feel constrained to decline the proposition of 
Dr. Sunderland in yesterday's Chronicle. In the first place, my 
native modesty shrinks from the publicity of a controversy with 
so distinguished an antagonist. I prefer to withhold my full 
name altogether, especially as I take the unpopular side. I am 
an obscure layman ; my antagonist is a distinguished clergyman. 
Unknown as I am to him now, I am quite certain that he 
would prefer a more equal adversary. In coming out to meet 
me he would feel as Goliath did when he saw the stripling 
David, while I could never acquire the courage and confidence 
of David, nor would I like, after all, to triumph, metaphorically 
speaking, as David did. Therefore I propose to offer a sub- 
stitute ; and with that view I have written to one who I believe 
will accept the challenge and do ample justice to my side of the 
question. I mean Parker Pillsbury, of Ohio. Should he not 
accept it there are several other men of distinction that I can 
name, some one of whom doubtless will be willing to discuss the 
question as fully as Dr. Sunderland desires. 

Let us have light, and let truth prevail, though the heavens 
fall. W. H. B. 

THE DOCTOTt HEADY FOR A SKIRMISH. 

"W. H. B." declines my proposition. His ''native mod- 
esty" is certainly a curious thing. It permits him, with an 
apparent show of learning, to dispute my position and to vaunt 
before the public what he could do if he only had " the space." 
At the same time, it hides his name, especially as he is " on the 
unpopular side." It suggests a comparison between himself and 
David, and yet disclaims any desire for a similar triumph. Be- 
yond this, however, it prompts him to seek " a substitute," and 
to inform the public that he has written to Mr. Pillsbury. 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. O 

Well, when Mr. Pillsbury is ready let me know, and I will com- 
mence the suggested correspondence at once. After we have 
finished we will have it all published in pamphlet form, if 
possible. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

In the next issue of the same paper another writer makes the 
following strictures on Dr. Sunderland's discourse : 

ANOTHER RICHMOND IN THE FIELD. 

I have read with some curiosity Dr Sunderland's sermon on 
this subject, and, if I had been a firm believer before in the 
duty of keeping Sunday, I should have had my faith severely 
shaken finding that two columns of special pleading in fine print 
were necessary even to get up a showing of a case in favor of the 
obligation. I know I cannot have two columns to answer the 
reverend Doctor, but perhaps you will let me state a few proposi- 
tions, which, I think, are clearer than his argument : 

1. The observance of any day is not, in itself, a moral duty. 

2. It can become a duty only by divine command. 

3. There was such a divine command in reference to the 
seventh day. 

4. There was a reason given for the observance of the sev- 
enth day, viz : that God rested on that day. 

5. It is taught in the New Testament, and admitted by Dr. 
Sunderland, that there is no longer any obligation to keep the 
day originally appointed. 

6. It would have been a very simple matter to make known 
any transfer of obligation from the seventh day to the first day 
of the week, in a plain command to that effect. 

7. It is not pretended that there ever has been any such com- 
mand. 

8. The pretended obligation to keep Sunday is merely a mat- 
ter of unfair inference, sustained by a tissue of sophistical special 
pleading, such as would drive any lawyer out of court. 

9. The idea of attaching superlative importance to an observ- 
ance wholly ceremonial, and as a duty wholly artificial, involv- 
ing no moral principle whatever, is simply preposterous. 

SIGMA. 

The Doctor replies to the foregoing as follows : 



6 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

FIGHTIXG IX AMBUSH — DR. SUNDERLAND'S COUNTER PROPOSITIONS. 

While waiting for Mr. Pillsbury ou the Sabbath question, it 
seems a new gun is opened from another ambush. Does it not 
look like a sign of conscious weakness in their cause for men to 
hide themselves behind some signature which keeps them from 
being known to the public? I must confess I don't like such 
opponents. My general rule is not to notice them. If a man is 
afraid or ashamed to let the public know who he is, I say he is not 
the man to conduct a public discussion on a subject of this kind. 

I should not reply to " Sigma," were it not for the importance 
of meeting every objection which it is possible to urge against 
" the Christian Sabbath." I suggest, in answer to his communi- 
cation, the following counter propositions : 

1. The moral welfare of man is an object of prime considera- 
tion. 

2. To divide and spend our time in such a manner as best to 
promote our moral welfare is a moral duty. 

3. The Bible teaches (and all experience and observation con- 
firm it) that spending one day in seven as a day of sacred rest is 
pre-eminently conducive to our moral welfare, and therefore it im- 
poses the moral obligation to do so. 

4. Keeping the seventh day of the established week becomes 
a duty by divine command, just as " Thou shalt not steal" be- 
comes a duty by divine command. 

5. There is now such a divine command in reference to the 
seventh day of the present established week, which command is 
accompanied by the reason that God set an example of such rest 
at the conclusion of the creation week. 

6. It is taught in the New Testament, and maintained by me, 
that there is no longer auy obligation to keep " the Jewish Sab- 
bath," but that such obligation is now transferred to " the Chris- 
tian Sabbath." 

7. It is a false issue to assert that the question is upon trans- 
ferring the obligation from the seventh to the first day of the 
Jewish week, and that there is no command for such transfer, 
when the whole " Jewish week" itself has been set aside and 
"the Christian week" has been established. 

8. Such cm issue as the above, sustained by no facts, and even 
by no pleadings, sophistical, special, general, or otherwise, worthy 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 7 

of the name, would drive not only "lawyers" but "laymen" 
out of court. 

9. The duty of observing and keeping the Sabbath day holy 
is not for the benefit of the day, but for the benefit of man him- 
self. It is not. therefore, either " a ceremonial or artificial duty;" 
and when God commanded it as a part of the moral law, He was 
probably about as wise as the anti-Sabbatarian, Mr. "Sigma/' 
who, it seems, does not even comprehend either the nature of the 
Sabbath or the first principles of morality. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

And now another writer steps in with the following reply to 
the above : 

A THIRD RICHMOND— THE ARGUMENT BECOMING CONTAGIOUS. 

In reply to Dr. Sunderland's nine propositions, I observe, sev- 
erally and consecutively, as follows : 

1. Good health is the greatest of all earthly blessings. 

2. The twenty-four hours of the day are best divided into three 
equal parts •. eight hours for labor, eight for refreshment and 
sleep, and eight for the service of God and a distressed brother. 

3. Petitio Principii . 

4. " Thou shalt not steal" is mala perse; " Remember the 
Sabbath day" is mala prohibita. 

5. " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
Sabbath." 

6. " Let no man judge you in keeping the Sabbath day." 

7. " False issue" denied in toto. The question is upon the 
transfer. 

8. Matter of private opinion as to the form of a special plea. 

9. " Mr. Sigma does not comprehend either the nature of the 
Sabbath or the first principles of morality." The old dodging- 
place of the clergy when close run. 

RICHMOND No. 3. 

To this the Doctor puts in a rejoinder, the essential part of 
which is given below. 

THE DOCTOR PRESSING ON — WHERE IS MR. PILLSBURY? — " RICHMOND 
NO. 3 " DISPOSED OF. 

As the argument of the anti-Sabbatarians (while waiting for 
Mr. Pillsbury) seems to be rather " running emptyings," it is 



5 SUNDAY XOT THE SABBATH : 

hardly worth while to spend much time on "Richmond No. 3." 
However, his propositions may be answered in few words, as fol- 
lows : 

1. As " good health is the greatest earthly blessing," virtue, 
of course, will have to take a back seat. 

2. Obiter dictum. 

3. Ipse dixit. 

4. An affirmative precept, mala prohlblta ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
H02: -latin ; up with the hog-latin ! up with a baseless distinc- 
tion! 

5. " The Sabbath was made for man." Man continues and 
the Sabbath remains. 

6. Misquotation and misapplication of Scripture. 

7. The question Is not upon the transfer from the seventh to 
the first day of the Jewish week. 

8. Private opinion — a great responsibility. 

9. Smart thing for men in their holes to talk about ""the old 
dodging-place of the clergy." 

Let us now attend to the matter of Dean Alford on Acts xiii, 
42. The meaning of this text turns on the word metaxu. Al- 
ford sa} T s, " to metaxu Sabbaton appears by the usage of Luke to 
mean the next Sabbath day, not the ' following week.' This last 
rendering would hardly suit els, which fixes a definite occasion." 

Thus he merely conjectures that metaxu signifies here " next/' 
and in the margin he makes two references to Josephus and one 
to Plutarch in support of his conjecture. Our answer is four- 
fold : 

1. Alford, following many others in this error, did not under- 
stand the allusion of this passage, and consequently resorted to 
a conjecture wholly unnecessary. 

2. The word metaxu has no such meaning in classic Greek, 
but invariably signifies that which intervenes or comes between. 

3. There is no such usage of the word metaxu either in the 
writings of Luke or of any other part of the New Testament 
Greek. In fact, it is used only nine times, all told. 

[In seven of the passages cited by Dr. S. the word is rendered 
"between,'' and in two, " meanwhile."] 

Now, can any man tell me why the word metaxu in the New 
Testament Greek has an invariable signification — that of inter- 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. V) 

veiling or coming between, and yet it must be used out of it? ac- 
customed import in this single text alone — that is, Acts xiii, 42? 
What authority has Alford or any other scholar to make such a 
departure from the established meaning of words ? 

4. My fourth point is that the references given by Alford do 
not sustain his conjecture, but show that just the opposite is the 
fact. 

[Having considered and discussed the references, the Doctor 
continues :] 

Thus we see that every reference made by Alford is against the 
sense of "next," or "following" for the word metaxu in this 
passage. Beside this, neither Josephus nor Plutarch, both of 
whom wrote about a century after the New Testament was com- 
jposed, can furnish authority for the usage of words by writers so 
long before them. The law of usage does not ascend. 

Such being the case, I would say to Mr, " W. H. B.," whoso- 
ever he may be, that we feel constrained on this text "to dis- 
card " Dr. Alford as " the latest standard authority/' and to hold 
to the old classic and New Testament usage of the word metaxu 
in the interpretation of this passage. Our English translators 
stand corrected here. They mistook the allusion of the passage 
and the learned Doctor of Cambridge has only followed in their 
footsteps. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

IS DR. SUNDERLAND A ROMAN CATHOLIC? 

And now comes in still another adversary, who insists that Dr. 
S., in taking the position he has assumed, has, "unknowingly, 
demolished the groundwork of Protestant belief, namely, the 
Bible, and practically indorsed that of the Catholic, namely, 
Tradition." The obligation to keep holy the first day of the 
Peek, -ays the writer, " is nowhere stated to have been imposed, 
cither by Christ or his apostles; nowhere recorded, or so much 
as alluded to in any one of the Gospels or Epistles." The obli- 
gation rests ' ' wholly and exclusively upon the authority of tra- 
dition." 

The Doctor replies to the above as follows : 



10 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH: 

THE CHARGE OF ROMANISM — THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES — SCRIPTURE 
AND TRADITION. 

Has Kip Van Winkle come again? The article of " M." in 
yesterday's paper takes us back to the dark ages. In those days 
tradit ion was a huge thing. The Bible was of but little account. 
Few people knew much about it. 

When the Reformation rose the English Church combated the 
authority of tradition by affirming the article quoted by " M.," 
namely: " Holy Scripture containeth all things," &c. This was, 
and is, good Christian doctrine. 

Our new Rip Yan Winkle thinks he has me here. His trap 
is remarkably novel and ingenious. He begins by reiterating the 
old false issue about " changing the Sabbath from the seventh to 
the first day of the Jewish week." He says the warrant for this 
change is not to be found " in any one of the Gospels, or in any 
one of the Epistles;" but yet it is an article of Christian faith, 
and must, therefore, be founded on tradition. 

And having come to this conclusion, he makes the astounding 
discovery that I have ' ' unknowingly demolished the groundwork 
of Protestant belief!" 

It is curious to see what makeshifts are adopted by the anti- 
Sabbatarians (while waiting for Mr. Pillsbury) to conceal their, 
total discomfiture in the discussion of " the Christian Sabbath." 
Driven from one point they fly to another, if possible, still more 
irrelevant and untenable. Like Samson's foxes, tail to tail, they 
run in all directions and in no direction long. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

In the same paper containing the above " W. H. B." comes 

out with the following essay : 

"W. H. B." AT LAST SIGNS IN FULL — DAVLD MEETS GOLIATH. 

Not having heard from Mr. Pillsbury, whom I addressed at 
Toledo, Ohio, but who doubtless is now absent from that city, I 
will, with your permission, Mr. Editor, reply to Dr. Sunder- 
land's defence of his position in regard to the proper rendering of 
to metazu, sabbaton. iiut before doing so allow me to say that, 
while I protest against the injustice of his charge that I am * : fight- 
ing in ambush " — while I insist that it is both customary and 
proper for an obscure writer to withhold his name from the pub- 
lic in sending contributions to the press, except where the public 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 11 

interest demands it — and though I am not aware that I am known 
personally to a single editor in this city, I will, nevertheless, to 
use the elegant expression of my adversary, " come out of my 
hole " and disclose my full name. 

There is another reason why I preferred in this case to remain 
anonymous; that reason may be inferred from the last sentence 
in Dr. S.'s reply to " Sigma," who, he says, " it seems does not 
even comprehend either the nature of the Sabbath or the first 
principles of morality ." I have a private character which I hope 
to maintain, and I do not wish to have it brought before the pub- 
lic Avith any imputation of that sort upon it, which, in my estima- 
tion, is little short of a libel. That is a style of discussion that I 
wish to avoid. 

The main point that I made against Dr. S.'s sermon was that 

his "inevitable conclusion " that Paul preached on a Christian 

bath, between two Jewish Sabbaths, was at variance with the 

latest and best Christian standard authority, Dean Alford. This 

the Doctor admits, but he says that Dean Alford does not under- 

the allusion in the passage in question. 

In order to present the question intelligibly let me give the two 
verses in Acts xiii : 

Verse 42. — "And when the Jews were gone out of the syna- 
gogue the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached 
to i hem the next Sabbath." 

Verse 44. — "And the next Sabbath day came almost the 
whole city together to hear the word of God." 

Dean Alford says that this rendering in verse 42, " the next 
Sabbath," is correct; that it moans the next Sabbath day, and 
not the "following week." And he adds: " This last rendering 
would hardly suit eis, which fixes a definite occasion, nor verse 
44, which gives the result." The last clause was not quoted by 
Dr. S., nor the author's note on verse 44, which is as follows : 
" Whether erch (omeiw) or ech (omeno) be read, the sense will 
bis ' on the following [*] day,' and not as Henrichs, 'on the fol- 
lowing week day.' " 

Now, I submit to scholars and common-sense people whether 
Dean Alford's rendering is not more probably correct than that 

* The intelligent reader will here supply the word "Sabbath," for 
verse 44 reads, to te erchomeno Sabbato — " the next Sabbath day." 



12 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

of Dr. Sunderland. This point is one on which the whole argu- 
ment of Dr. S. hinges; if it fails his Christian Sabbath falls. If 
Paul did not then and there observe a Christian Sabbath, there 
was none at that time, and there is none now. 

But I have not done with Christian authorities in support of 
the passage as given in our Bibles. I find it sustained by John 
Calvin, Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, Thomas Scott, and 
Joseph Benson. I will not take the space to quote them all, but 
content myself with an extract from the last. Says Benson : 

"In the intermediate Sabbath, i.e., says Bengelius, 'the 
Sabbath that should occur in the remaining days about to be spent 
by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch. 1 But Grotius is confident 
that the reading ought to be ' in the intermediate time between 
the two Sabbaths,' or ' in the course of the ensuing week ;' Mon- 
days and Thursdays, or the second and fifth days of the week, 
being times in which the pious Jews were accustomed to meet 
together in the synagogue for the study of the law, in compli- 
ance, says Lightfoot, with the appointment of Isaiah. It seems, 
however, to be fully determined by ver. 44 that our version 
gives the true expression." 

Thus I have brought five Christian commentators against the 
rendering which Dr. S. gives. I do not know whether he 
claims originality of discovery or not. I am not aware, as yet, 
of any authority on his side except the marginal reading of our 
reference Bibles, and that is ambiguous. If Dr. S. is right, let 
him try and convince Christian scholars who accept the Lord's 
day as a Christian Sabbath, but who reject this passage as proof 
of it ; and then let him try to convert us anti-Sabbatarians. 

As David chose five smooth stones from the brook, so have I 
cited five eminent commentators, any one of whom is fatal to 
Goliath. 

WM. HENRY BURR. 

GOLIATH THINKS DAVID HAS HIT HIMSELF. 

We wait no longer for Mr. Pillsbury. "W. H. B." comes 
out from his obscurity. I think Mr. Burr is not personally 
known to me, and he will excuse any omission of titles, as I do 
not know whether I should address him as judge, professor, gen- 
eral, colonel, major, or captain. 

This is just what comes of men not doing right in the 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 13 

first place. If lie bud announced himself he would have been 
saved the trouble of the protest in his first paragraph. As to 
the "little short of a libel" on " Sigma," there was the same 
difficulty. I had nothing to judge by but his propositions, and 
my conclusion, as I think, was perfectly logical from the premises. 

Mr. Burr is deceived when he thinks that the argument for 
"the Christian Sabbath" rests solely on the meaning of Acts 
xiii, 42. This text is, in fact, but a subordinate incident in the 
general discussion. But when rightly understood, it does clearly 
confirm the truth of the Christian Sabbath. The great argu- 
ment springs from another quarter. 

Mr. Burr, it seems, relies on the opinions of distinguished 
Christian scholars, and expects to triumph through the over- 
whelming weight of great names. He will find before he gets to 
the end that this is a very precarious game, which two can 
play at. 

His main point against me was that metaxu, (not metazu, as 
he writes it,) in Acts xiii, 42, does not mean between or inter- 
vening, but next or following . To support this position, he cited 
tiie authority of Alford. I have shown that Alford is totally 
mistaken. If he is mistaken, then all who agree with him are 
mistaken. 

I am glad Mr. Burr calls my attention to Alford's note on verse 
44, as it furnishes a new argument from his stand-point for my 
rendering of metaxu in verse 42. If, as Alford savs, " the sense 
will be on the following day, and not as Heinrichs, on the fol- 
lowing week-day," this shows conclusively it was " the Christian 
Sabbath," for if the day following the Jewish Sabbath " was not 
a week-day," then it was "the Christian Sabbath," as we know is 
now the fact. 

Thank you, Mr. Burr ! Truth always shines brighter the more 
k is rubbed! 

Ho has not done, however, " with Christian authorities." He 
produces his five smooth stones, Calvin, Clarke, Henry, Scott, 
and Benson, but only slings one of them. The shot, however, 
by some singular freak, instead of hitting his adversary, twirls 
round and sinks into his own head! Quoting Benson, who 
quotes Grotius, who was the most learned man of his time, he 
distinctly proves the truth of my rendering of metaxu. Grotius 
insists that the reading should be "the intermediate Sabbath;" 



14 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

that is, the Sabbath between two Jewish Sabbaths. So much for 
the quotation from Benson. 

Four stones remain unslung. 

" He is not aware of any authority on my side, except the mar- 
ginal reading, which is ambiguous. " He had better go back to 
the old classic Greek, to the usage of the New Testament Greek 
itself, and to hundreds of authorities far more decisive of my ren- 
dering of metaxu in this passage than any he has yet produced 
against it. 

But to do this I fear will require more time and space than can 
be devoted to the subject in the columns of the daily journals. 
And now that the gentleman appears in his own proper person, 
and Mr. Pillsbury is out of the question, I have the pleasure of 
renewing to Mr. Burr my original proposition. Let us corres- 
pond, privately at first, till we have concluded what we have to 
say, and then publish the correspondence in pamphlet form. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

DAVID CUTS OFF GOLIATH'S HEAD. 

Prostrate Goliath flounders. He speaks. It is David, he says, 
that is smitten. David thinks Goliath is blind, and in the death- 
struggle. 

My adversary says that the weight of Christian authority is a 
game that two can play at. Just so. Play away, Doctor. You 
are plaintiff, I defendant. I demand a jury of your peers, all 
drawn from the Christian Church. I challenge now [none] for 
bias ; and if I can't get a verdict for defendant, all the plaintiff 
can hope for is a disagreement ; so that he loses his case any way. 

The Doctor's Greek is good ; not so his logic. First, he admits 
that Dean Alford is against him, and then claims that he is for 
him. This will be news to the Dean of Canterbury. Grotius, 
he says, is for him, because he insists on the reading, "the inter- 
mediate Sabbath." Not so, Doctor. Surely, you did not intend 
to garble and pervert Grotius, who says, "in the intermediate 
time between the two Sabbaths," specifying Monday and Thurs- 
day, (not Sunday,) which were the lecture days of the Jews. 

My opponent having thus perverted both Alford and Grotius, 
let him try his hand at the other four authorities. It is unneces- 
sary for me to quote them ; they are clearly and strongly against 
him. And I will add that I have two more of the same sort, 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLT. 15 

namely, Chrysostoni, archbishop of Constantinople, who first made 
public in that city the existence of the Book of Acts in the year 
400, and the late Albert Barnes. The earliest Christian com- 
mentator [upon the book of Acts] never dreamed of the render- 
ing of the passage in question, revealed to Dr. Sunderland, and 
his brother Barnes, the latest commentator, died without the dis- 
covery. 

Having slung the stone, I now proceed to cut off Goliath's 
head with his own two-edged sword. Eight years after the cru- 
cifixion the Gospel was first preached and the Christian Church 
established at Antioch, in Syria. (Actsxi, 19-26.) Four years 
later, Paul and Barnabas, being sent on a missionary tour, reached 
Antioch, in Pisidia, a sequestered town, remote from the sea, 
lying at the foot of impassable mountains, and distant about 830 
miles in a straight line from the other place. There were a few 
Jews in this second Antioch,, but not a Christian until Paul went 
there. How, then, could the Gentiles, who had never before 
heard of Christianity, have besought Paul to preach to them on 
the next Christian Sabbath ? 

Dear Doctor, is not this one of those passages " which they that 
be unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction ?" I 
mean polemically, not literally. 

Enough on this point. I have said that Paul, during a minis- 
try of twenty years, constantly preached in the synagogues on the 
Jewish Sabbath. I now give the proof. Straightway after his 
conversion he began to preach in the synagogues, (Acts, ix, 20.) 
Pic did so at Antioch, in Pisidia, two Sabbath days in succession, 
(xiii, 14, 44,) then at Iconium, (xiv, 1,) then at Thessalonica, 
"as his manner was," three Sabbath days, (xvii, 2,) then at 
Berea, (ver. 10,) then at Athens, (ver. 17,) then at Corinth 
" every Sabbath," for a year and a half, (xviii, 4-11,) then at 
Ephesus, (ver. 19,) and again at the same place for " three 
months," (xix, 8.) During all this time I do not find the slight- 
est evidence that Paul observed the first day of the week as a 
Sabbath. 

I decline a private correspondence. In three or four articles 
of a quarter of a column each, I can say all I desire to on this 
subject. But if my opponent declines a further newspaper discus- 
sion, I rest my case here. 

WM. HENRY BURR. 



16 



SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 



GOLIATH, THOUGH DEAD, YET SPEAKS. 

Mr. Burr positively declines the private correspondence I 
must, therefore, make short work of his last communication. 

1. I quoted Grotius from memory. The original has tempore 
instead of Sabbato. I have no intention to misquote. 

2. Can Mr. Burr say as much, when he has misrepresented 
Alford on verse 42, and misquoted him on" verse 44? 

3. Mr. Burr cannot be permitted to select a jury from wit- 
nesses whom we are going to put on the stand ! 

4. We will attend to these witnesses in due time. Alford is 
already discredited. Benson gets his quietus from Grotius, and 
the rest will follow as fast as we can reach them ? 

5. He praises my Greek. Of course, after his blunder in 
orthography I fully appreciate the compliment. 

6. He says my logic, &c, " will be news to the Dean of Can- 
terbury," (meaning Alford.) As the Dean is dead, the " news" 
will, of course, be penetrating. 

7. He need not spend time on " the Jewish Sabbath," or to 
prove that the Apostles availed themselves of those occasions to 
preach the Gospel. Nobody denies this. 

"8. It is equally useless to enter upon any historical researches 
of the early Church to show that none of the Gentiles in Pisidia 
had ever heard of "the Christian Sabbath." Dozens of people 
might have been in Antioch on that very Sabbath who had 
recently come from Palestine. 

9. The issue between us, mind, is the meaning of metaxu. 
He says it means next. I say it means between. 

I will endeavor to be perfectly fair in examining the witnesses 
he produces on his side, and in presenting such witnesses as I 
may on my side. But it will take more time and space than can 
be usually given in the columns of a daily journal like the Chron- 
icle. I therefore defer further observations to a future occasion. 

B. SUNDERLAND. 
DAVID ADDRESSES GOLIATH'S GHOST. 

The ghost of Goliath appears. He says he quoted Grotius 
from memory ! The passage, as given by Benson, was before 
his eyes. Why did he garble it ? 

In answer to my charge of misquoting, he says he did not 
intend to do so, and insinuates that I intended to misrepresent 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 17 

and misquote Dean Alford. I neithei intended it nor did it. 
The charge is false I quoted from Alford what Dr. S. omitted. 

In iinpannelling a jury of authorities I said, " I challenge 
none for bias." The word none was printed wow. I don't want 
to " select" a jury. A I will take them as they come. 

I mistook a Greek letter for another almost exactly similar, 
and I was not aware that Dean Alford had died within a year. 
I acknowledge my mistakes ; my opponent persists in his. 

The lexicons say that metaxu means not only between, but 
afterwards. 

Ghost of Goliath, au revoir. 

WILLIAM HENRY BURR. 

THE GHOST APPEARS AGAIN. 

Mr. Burr sees a ghost! Quite likely! Men's minds do 
wander sometimes. 

1. He says the passage as given by Benson was before my 
-, and wants to know why I garbled it? Does he know the 
primary meaning of garble? But let that pass. I would say to 
Mr. Burr, just in this connection, that Grotius wrote in Latin. I 
choose to read him in the original, not at second-hand. I made 
the proper correction in Latin without any reference to Benson. 
Is this persisting in a mistake ? 

*2. Mr. Burr denies that he misrepresented and misquoted 
Alford, and disclaims the intention. I do not charge him with 
the intention ; but that he did it I will show. His words are, 
'•Alford says that this rendering in verse 42, ' the next Sabbath* 
is correct." Alford does not use the word correct. To ascribe it 
feo him is what I call misrepresentation. 

Again, on verse 44, he quotes Alford as saying, " the sense 
will be on the following day." Alford's words are, " the sense 
will be on the following Sabbath-day." This is what I call mis- 
quotation. 

3. Bias or no bias, we cannot consent to have a jury made up 
of the witnesses in the case. 

4. Lexicons at the best are only secondary authority. Cer- 
tainly they cannot settle the meaning of metaxit in Acts xiii., 42. 

I am preparing an article on the weight of authority as to the 
meaning of this text, which, when completed, I hope to have 
published in some form as a full expression of my views. 

13. SUNDERLAND. 



18 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

WHAT DAVID SATS TO IT A SECOND TIME. 

Dr. Sunderland did not make " the proper correction" of his 
misquotation of Grotius. The passage reads " medio tempore 
inter duo Sabbata " — "in the intermediate time between two 
Sabbaths." To make it read, " in the intermediate Sabbath," is 
garbling. 

I did not " ascribe" the word " correct" to Alford, and Dr. 
Sunderland knows it. In the quotation, " the following Sabbath 
day," the word " Sabbath" is not to be found in Alford's latest 
edition, which I saw. I knew and Dr. Sunderland knew it ought 
to be there, and yet upon that omission he sought to make Alford 
stultify himself; and now, finding the word supplied in a former 
edition, with strange perversity he charges me with misquotation. 

WM. HENRY BURR. 

THE GHOST RETURNS A THIRD TIME. 

1. Mr. Burr thinks I did not make the proper correction. Let 
us see. Quoting Grotius from memory, I made him read " the 
intermediate Sabbath," as though his words were medio Sabhato. 
Discovering the mistake, I corrected it by saying "the original 
has tempore instead of Sabbata." This would make it read, as it 
actually does, medio tempore. 

But Mr. Burr hastens to tell us that the passage reads " medic 
tempore inter duo Sabbato." And he adds, to make it read " in 
the intermediate Sabbath " is garbling. He might as well accuse 
me of garbling because I did not quote the entire work of Gro- 
tius bodily. 

2. Mr. Burr's words are, "Alford says that this rendering in 
verse 42, ' the next Sabbath,' is correct." If this is not ascribing 
to Alford the word " correct,^ will Mr. Burr tell us what it is? 

3. How will Mr. Burr reconcile what he represents Alford as 
saying with what he quotes Grotius as saying in regard to the 
meaning of metaxu, in Acts xiii, 42. 

4. I am inclined to think that Mr. Burr muddles himself and his 
foremost witness, Alford, by confessing that he quoted an error 
from an erroneous copy of Alford, knowing it to be such at the 
time ! Isn't that being rather hard-pushed for testimony ? 

5. Now, Mr. Burr, see what you have done ? By quoting 
from your erroneous edition of Alford you have led me into error 
in quoting the same thing after you, to make, from your stand- 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 19 

point, an argument on my side. This is "stultifying" Alford 
with a vengeance ! I have never seen the erroneous edition of 
which you speak. Is it at Ballantyne's? 

B. SUNDERLAND. 

A FINAL WORD BY DAVID. 

Mr. Burr, deeming it unnecessary to reply to the foregoing, 
leaves his adversary to have the last word in the Chronicle. But 
in reproducing the controversy he submits the following final 
word: 

" There is no God," (Ps. liii, 1 ;) " Trust in vanity and speak 
lies," (Is. lix, 4.) Who says that is garbling? Must I quote 
the whole Bible? 

How " hard-pushed" the Doctor must have been for an argu- 
ment when he eagerly seized upon so apparent an omission as that 
of the word " Sabbath," in Dean Alford's note on Acts xiii, 44, 
not only to make nonsense of the note, but to make the " Sab- 
bath-day," mentioned in verse 44, mean the first day of the week, 
contrary to the Doctor's own admission in his discourse ! (See 
page 1.) 



HOW THE EARLY FATHERS, REFORMERS, AND OTHER 

EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS REGARDED 

SUNDAY AND THE SABBATH. 



In the Duly Chronicle of October 31, one day prior to the 
Ippearance of Dr. Sunderland's last article in the controversy 
with Mr. Burr, the Doctor uses this language in reply to an asser- 
tion by " J. 11," on the previous day, that there is no authority 
in history or Christianity for a special sacred day: 

"Whoever will undertake deliberately to assert that there is 
no authority for the Christian Sabbath in history or Christianity 
is too far gone in self-complacent ignorance to be reasoned with." 

And yet so eager was the Doctor at the outset to discuss the 



20 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

question, that he challenged an anonymous writer, (" W. H.B.,") 
who clearly denied the authority for the Christian Sabbath, to a 
private controversy. (See page 3.) But letting that pass, let us 
see how the early Fathers, Reformers, and other eminent Christian 
writers regarded Sunday and the Sabbath, and whether the charge 
of ""self-complacent ignorauce " will apply to them. 

JUSTIN MARTYR, 

So called from his being believed to have suffered martyrdom 
about A. D. 163, was supposed to have been born A. D. 89. In 
his Dialogue with Tri/pho, the Jew, reported by himself, (Ante- 
Nicene Library, vol. ii,) the following passages referring to the 
Sabbath are gathered : 

Trypho. " This is what we are most at a loss about : that you, 
professing to be pious and supposing yourself better than others, 
are not in any. particular separate from them, and do not alter 
your mode of living from the nations, in that you observe no fes- 
tivals or Sabbaths, and do not have the rite of circumcision." 

Justin. '-'We do not trust through Moses or through the law, 
for then we would be the same as yourselves. . . For the 
law, promulgated on Horeb, is now old and belongs to yourselves 
alone. . . Now, law placed against law has abrogated that 
which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like man- 
ner has put an end to the previous one, and an eternal final law, 
namely, Christ, has been given to us; and the covenant is trust- 
worthy, after which there shall be no law, no commandment, no 
ordinance. . . The new law requires you to keep a per- 
petual Sabbath : and you, because you are idle for one day, sup- 
pose you are pious, not discerning why this has been commanded 
you. . . As if it were not the same God who existed in 
the times of Enoch and all the rest, who neither were circumcised 
after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any other rites. 
Do you see that the elements are not idle and keep no Sabbaths ? 
. . For if there was no need of circumcision before Abra- 
ham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, feasts, and sacrifices, 
before Moses, no more need is there of them now, after that, 
according to the will of God, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has 
been born without sin." 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 21 

Tnjpho. < < Why do you select and quote whatever you wish from 
the prophetic writings, but do not refer to those which expressly 
command the Sabbath to be observed ?" 

Justin. "I have passed them by, not because such prophecies 
were contrary to me, but because you have understood and do 
understand, that although God commands you by all the prophets 
to do the same things which He commanded Moses, it was on 
account of the hardness of your hearts and your ingratitude 
towards Him that He continually proclaims them. . * Why 
did He not teach those who are called righteous and pleasing to 
Him, who lived before Moses and Abraham . . and 
observed no Sabbaths, to keep these institutions ?" 

TERTULLIAN 

Was presbyter of the Church of Carthage about A. D. 193, and 
died about A. D. 220. In his Apology addressed to the rulers 
of the Roman Empire, (Ante-JVicene Library, vol. xi, p. 85,) he 
says : 

"Butyou many of you, also, under pretence sometimes of 
worshipping^ heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction 
of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sun-day to 
rejoicing xrom a far different reason than Sun-worship, we have 
some resemblance to those who devote the day of Saturn to ease 
and luxury, though they, too, go far away from the Jewish ways, 
ot winch indeed they are ignorant." 

In his essay On Idolatry (Ibid, p. 162) are these words : 
"By us to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons 
and festivals formerly beloved by God, the Saturnalia and New- 
year s and Mid-winter's festivals and Matronalia are frequented. 
J, " • r J Ve a . r( \ not apprehensive lest we seem to be hea- 
tnensf If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh you have 
it. L will not say your own days, but more too; for, to the 
heathens each festive day occurs but once annually: you have a 
festive day every eighth day." 

In his address To the Nations, (Ibid, p. 449,) he thus 
speaks of Sunday: J 

"Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be 



22 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH ! 

confessed, suppose that the San is the God of the Christians, be-1 
cause it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the East orl 
because we make Sunday a day of festivity." 

Lastly, in his Answer to the Jews, [Ibid, vol. xviii, chap. 4,)| 
he maintains that the temporal, Jewish Sabbath is abrogated : 

" It follows accordingly, that in so far as the abolition of carnal! 
circumcision and of the old law is being demonstrated as having 
been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance oB 
the Sabbath is oeing demonstrated to have been temporary. T 
We [Christians] understand that we still morel 
ought to observe a Sabbath from all ' servile work' always, ana 
not only every seventh day, but through all time. 
For the Scriptures point to a Sabbath eternal and a Sabbath! 
temporal." 

EUSEBIUS, 

The father of church history, who wrote about A. D. 315, in] 
Book i, chap. 4, of his Ecclesiastical History, says : 

"They [the patriarchs] did not therefore regard circumcision! 
nor observe the Sabbath, neither do we ; neither do we abstain! 
from certain foods, nor regard other injunctions which Mosen 
subsequently delivered to be observed in types and symbolsX 
because such things as these do not belong to Christians." 

MARTIN LUTHER, 

The father of the Reformation, is quoted by Mitchelet in his Lifei 
of Luther, (Book iv, chap. 2,) as follows: 

"As regards the Sabbath or Sunday, there is no necessityl 
for keeping it ; but if we do, it ought to be not on account on 
Moses' commandment, but because nature teaches us from time! 
to time to take a day of rest." 

The following quotation is also made from Luther, by Cole-; 
ridge, in his Table Talk, article " Christian Sabbath:" 

" Keep it for its use' sake both to body and soul. But if any- 1 
where the day is made holy for the mere day's sake — if any-l 
where any one sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation ,] 
then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, tod 
feast on it — to do anything that shall reprove this encroachment 
on the Christian spirit of liberty." 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 23 

In a hasty search of Luther's writings we have been unable to 
find either of the above passages ; but their verity is not contro- 
verted, even by the Rev. James Gilfillan, of Scotland, the latest 
and perhaps most learned advocate of the Christian Sabbath, 
whose elaborate work on that subject has been recently reissued 
by the American Tract Society. And we have found in Luther's 
works enough to prove that he did cherish such views, as will 
appear from his instructions to Christians h^>w to make use of 
Moses, a few sentences of which we here translate from Lutlieri 
Opera Latina, Tom. iii, pp. 72-3 : 

" The whole of the law of Moses, in its promulgation, be- 
longs to the Jews alone, and not to other nations, nor to us 
Christians. It was manifestly given to that people only, and 
they received it to be observed by them and their posterity to 
the exclusion of all other nations. . . . Nothing of it 
pertains to other nations, not even the words delivered from 
Mount Sinai. ... I say this on account of certain 
ignorant and pernicious spirits, who, because the laws and polity 
of Moses were prescribed to the people of God, say it is necessary 
that we should observe the same. These new masters would 
teach us something more than the Gospel of Christ. 
Their doctrines are fanatical, and foreign from the true under- 
standing of the Gospel. Do not listen to them ; rather let no 
mention of Moses be made at all. . . . We neither wish, 
nor ought we to acknowledge Moses as our legislator, nor has 
God so intended it. "When, therefore, you hear 

these men say, ' Thus Moses wrote and commanded the people 
of God by Divine authority, and therefore these things are bind- 
ing on us,' you will answer them in a word : ' What is Moses to 
us? We have nothing to do with his ministry or vocation' 
. For if you concede that you are bound by one of his 
laws you cannot escape the observance of the whole. . 
Let Moses go ; he is dead, and was buried long ago by God him- 
self. . . . That the decalogue does not bind the Gen- 
tiles is shown by the very words of its promulgation, in Exodus 
■xx, where God says, ' I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.' 
Clearly he speaks and gives commandments to those whom he had 



24 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH \ 

led out of Egypt. Therefore the words have no reference to other 
nations, nor to us, for we were not brought out of Egypt. 

Here we might also show that the Sabbath in no way per- 
tained to the Gentiles. It was not commanded to them nor 
observed by any of them. Even Paul and the Apostles, after 
the Gospel began to be preached and spread over the world, 
clearly released the people from the observance of the Sabbath. 
And even the prophets foretold that the time would come when 
the Jewish Sabbath would cease to exist. Thus Isaiah, in the 
last chapter, says that after Christ has come the distinction be- 
tween the Sabbath and other days shall be removed, ' and there 
shall be month after month and Sabbath after Sabbath.' " — 
[Douay version, Is. lxvi 23.] 

PHILIP MELANCTHON, 

The bosom friend of Luther, framed and presented the Augsburg 
Confession to the Assembly in 1530. In it {Omnium Operum, 
1562, vol. i, p. 37,) are these words, which we translate from 
the Latin : 

"They who think that the observance of the Lord's day has 
been appointed by the authority of the Church instead of the Sab- 
bath, as a necessary thing, do greatly err. The Scripture allows 
that the observance of the Sabbath has now become void, for it 
teaches that the Mosaic ceremonies are not needful after the rev- 
elation of the Gospel. And yet, because it was requisite to assign 
a certain day that the people might know when to come together, 
it seems that the Church did, for that purpose, appoint the Lord's 
day, which day, for this cause also, seemed to have better pleased 
the Church, that in it men might have an example of Christian 
liberty, and might know that the observance neither of the Sab- 
bath nor of any other day is necessary." 

JOHN CALVIN, 
The father of Presbyterianism, in Book ii, chap. 8, of his Insti- 
tutes, concludes a long essay on the fourth commandment as fol- 
lows : 

"Thus vanish all the dreams of false prophets who, in past 
ages, have infected the people with a Jewish notion, affirming 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 25 

that nothing but the ceremonial part of this commandment 
(which, according to them, is the appointment of the seventh day) 
is abrogated; but that the moral part of it — that is, the obser- 
vance of one day in seven — still remains. But this is only 
changing the day in contempt of the Jews, while retaining the 
same opinion of the holiness of a day; for on this principle the 
same mysterious signification would still be attributed to particu- 
lar days which formerly obtained among the Jews." 

GROTIUS, 
The distinguished Dutch jurist and theologian, was born A. D. 
1583. In his Annotations on the Old Testament he thus com- 
ments on Exodus xx : 

4 ' These things refute those who suppose that the first day of 
the week (that is, the Lord's day) was substituted in place of 
the Sabbath ; for no mention is ever made of such a thing, either 
by Christ or the Apostles ; and when the Apostle Paul says, 
Christians are not to be condemned on account of Sabbaths, &c, 
(Col. ii, 16,) he shows that they were entirely free from that law; 
which liberty would be of no effect, if, the law remaining, the 
day merely were changed. Therefore the day of the Lord's res- 
urrection was not observed by Christians, any more than the Sab- 
bath, from any precept of God, or of the Apostles, but by volun- 
tary agreement of the liberty which had been given them." 

WILLIAM TYNDALE, 

The distinguished English reformer and martyr, in his Answer to 
Sir Thomas Moore's Dialogue, chap. 25, says : 

11 As for the Sabbath, we be lords over the Sabbath, and may 
yet change it into Monday or into any other day, as we see need; 
or make every tenth day a holy day only, if we see cause why. 
We may make two every week, if it were expedient, and not one 
enough to teach the people. Neither was there any cause to 
change it from Saturday than to put difference between us and 
the Jews, and lest we should become servants unto the day, after 
their superstition. Neither need we any holy day at all if the 
people might be taught without it." 



26 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH.* 

JOHN FRITH, 

A cotemporary of Tyndale, and also a martyr, in his Declaration 
of Baptism, takes a similar view, as follows : 

" Our forefathers which were in the beginning of the Church 
did abrogate the Sabbath, to the extent that men might have an 
example of Christian liberty, and that they might know that 
neither the keeping of the Sabbath nor of any other day is neces- 
sary. . . Howbeit, because it was necessary that a day 
should be reserved in which the people should come together to 
hear the word of God, they ordained in the stead of the Sabbath, 
which was Saturday, the next day following, which was Sunday. 
And although they might have kept Saturday with the Jews as 
a thing indifferent, yet did they much better, and overset the day, 
to be a perpetual memorial that we are free and not bound to any 
day, but that we may do all lawful works to the pleasure of God 
and profit of our neighbor. We are in manner as superstitious 
in the Sunday as they were in the Saturday ; yea, are we much 
madder ; for the Jews have the word of God for their Saturday, 
since it is the seventh day, and they were commanded to keep the 
seventh day solemn ; and we have not the word of God for us, 
but rather against us, for we keep not the seventh day as the Jews 



JOHN MILTON, 
In his Treatise on Christian Doctrines, vol. ii, p. 331, says : 

" Since, then, the Sabbath was originally an ordinance of the 
Mosaic law, since it was given to the Israelites alone, and that for 
the express purpose of distinguishing them from other nations, it 
follows that if (as was shown in the former book) those who live 
under the Gospel are emancipated from the ordinances of the law 
in general, least of all can they be considered as bound by that 
of the Sabbath, which was the special cause of its institution." 

Again, on page 332 : 

" The law of the Sabbath being thus repealed, that no particu- 
lar day of worship has been appointed in its place is evident from 
the same Apostle, (lioni. xiv, 5.") 

And on page 339 he concludes : 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 27 

"First, that under the gospel no one day is appointed for 
divine worship in preference to another, except such as the Church 
may set apart, of its own authority, for the voluntary assembling 
of its members ; and, secondly, that this may con- 

veniently take place once every seven days, particularly on the 
first day of the week. ... I perceive also that several of 
the best divines, as Bucer, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Musculus, Ur- 
sinus, Gomarus, and others, concur in the opinions above ex- 
pressed." 

PETER HEYLYN, 
Chaplain to Charles I and Charles II, as cited by Bannerman 
in his Modern Sabbath Examined, (London, 1832, p. 139,) dis- 
courses as follows : 

11 It was left to God's people to pitch on the first day of the 
week or any other, as the public use might require ; for there 
was no divine command that it particularly should be sanctified, 
as there was concerning the Jewish Sabbath. And though this 
day was taken up and made a day of meeting in the congrega- 
tion for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was 
neither law to bind them to it nor rest from labor or from worldly 
business required upon it. And when it seemed good unto 
Christian princes to lay restraints upon their people, yet at first 
it was not general, but only this : that certain men in certain 
places should lay aside their ordinary works to attend to God's 
service in the church ; those engaged in employments that were 
most toilsome and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sab- 
bath being allowed to follow and pursue their labors, because 
most necessary to the Commonwealth. And in following times, 
when the princes and prelates endeavored to restrain them from 
that also, it was not brought about without much struggling 
and opposition of the people ; more than a thousand years beiug 
past after Christ's ascension before the Lord's day had attained 
that state in which it now standeth. ... In all this 
time, in twelve hundred years, we find no Sabbath." 

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, 

In his Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul, (Andover edi- 
tion, p. 160,) says: 



23 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

11 Throughout the whole liturgy and rubric the word Sabbath 
never once occurs. Our reformers, there is every reason to 
believe, concurred in taking the same view of the obligation of 
the fourth commandment as is set forth in the catechism extant 
under the name of Archbishop Cranmer, published in the be- 
ginning of the reign of Edward VI: ' The Jews in the Old Tes- 
tament were commanded to keep the Sabbath day ; and they 
observed every seventh day, called the Sabbat or Satterday. 
But we Christian men in the New Testament are not bound to 
such commandments of Moses' law." 

Again, on page 163 : 

" We find, in short, the most ample evidence of the observance 
of the Lord's day as a Christian festival by the Apostles and 
their immediate converts, whose example has been followed by 
all Christian churches down to this day ; but that in so doing 
they conceived themselves to be observing a precept of he 
Levitical law, that they taught the doctrine of a transfer of the 
Sabbath from one day to another, we find not only no evidence, 
but every conceivable evidence to the contrary." 

JEREMY TAYLOR 
Treats of the Sabbath at great length. We subjoin a few pas- 
sages from vol. xii, of his WJiole Works: 

1 ' The Christians for a long time together did keep their conven- 
tions upon the Sabbath, in which some portions of the law were 
read. ... At first they kept both days, with this only dif- 
ference : that though they kept the Sabbath, yet it was after the 
Christian, that is, after the spiritual manner. . . . They 
did it without any opinion of essential obligation and without the 
Jewish rest. . . . We find it affirmed by Balsamo, ' The 
Sabbath day and the Lord's day were almost in all things made 
equal by the holy fathers.' . . . The effect of which 
consideration is, that the Lord's day did not succeed in the place 
of the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was wholly abrogated, and the 
Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. 
And the primitive Christians did all manner of works upon the 
Lord's day, even in times of persecution, when they are the 
strictest observers of all the Divine commandments. But in this 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 2d 

they knew there was none; and therefore when Constantine, the 
Emperor, had made an edict against working upon the Lord's 
day, yet he excepts and still permitted to agriculture the labors 
of the husbandman whatsoever; for ' God regardeth not outward 
cessation from works more upon one day than another,' as St. 
Epiphanius disputes well against the Ebionites and Man- 
icbseans." 

NEANDER, 

The most profound Church historian, in vol. i, sec. 3, of his Gen- 
eral History of the Christian Religion aw! Church in the three 
first centuries, (first edition,) thus speaks of Sunday : 

" The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always 
only a human ordinance ; and it was far from the intention of the 
Apostles to establish a divine command in this respect ; far from 
them and from the early Apostolic Church, to transfer the laws 
of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second 
century a false application of this kind had begun to take place, 
for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sun- 
day as a sin." 

In the second edition, which the author issued in 1843, the 
foregoing passage is not found, nor indeed anything like it. The 
explanation of so remarkable an omission is given by the trans- 
lator in his preface to the English edition, (Edinburgh, 1851-2,) 
as follows : "In this new edition the alterations are numerous and 
important. . . . These important changes, not here and there, 
but through the entire page and paragraphs, have made it neces- 
sary to translate nearly the whole of the first volume anew." 
That Neander did modify his views on the Sunday question ap- 
pears not only from the radical changes made in the second edi- 
tion of his General Church History, but from the following pas- 
sages contained in his prior work, entitled, History of the Plant- 
ing and Training of the Christian Church, (Edinburgh, 1842, 
vol. i, p. 156 :) 

"According to the doctrine of the Apostle Paul, the Mosaic 

law in its whole extent had lost its value as such to Christians ; 

. . but whatever was binding as a law for the Christian life 



30 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

must, as such, derive its authority from another quarter. Hence 
the transference of the Old Testament command of the sanctity 
of the Sabbath to the New Testament standing point was not 
admissible. . . . Thus all the days of the Christian life must 
be equally holy to the Lord. ... He fears that his labors 
among them, [the Galatians,] to make them Christians, had been 
in vain, because they reckoned the observance of certain days as 
holy to be an essential part of religion. . . . We must de- 
duce the religious observance of Sunday, not from the Jewish 
Christian churches, but from the peculiar circumstances of the Gen- 
tile Christians, and may account for the practice in the following 
manner: Where the circumstances of the churches did not allow 
of daily meetings for devotion, . . . although on the Chris- 
tian standing point all days were to be considered as equally holy, 
in an equal manner devoted to the Lord, yet, on account of 
peculiar outward relations, such a distinction of a particular day 
was adopted for religious communion." 

WILLIAM PALEY, 
Author of standard works on Natural Theology, Evidences of 
Christianity, and Moral and Political Philosophy, in discussing 
the Sabbath question in the last mentioned work, chap, vii, 
says: 

"St. Paul evidently appears to have considered the Sabbath 
as part of the Jewish ritual, and not obligatory on Christians as 
such." (Col. ii, 16, 17.) 

And in regard to the first day of the week he speaks as follows : 
"A cessation upon that day from labor beyond the time of 
attendance upon public worship is not intimated in any passage 
of the New Testament ; nor did Christ or his Apostles deliver, 
that we know of, any command to their disciples for a discontin- 
uance, upon that day, of the common affairs of their professions. 
The opinion that Christ and his Apostles meant to 
retain the duties of the Jewish Sabbath, shifting only the day 
from the seventh to the first, seems to prevail without sufficient 
reason ; nor does any evidence remain in the Scripture (of what, 
howevei , is not improbable) that the first day of the week was 
thus distinguished in commemoration of our Lord's resurrec- 
tion." 



ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

If the Christian Sabbath, so called, be of Divine appointment, 
to commemorate the resurrection of Christ, it must take its origin 
from that event. During the forty days thereafter that Jesus 
remained on earth, (Acts i, 3,) it is conceded that He gave no 
command to observe any day as a Sabbath. Did He then by His 
example indicate such an observance ? 

According to Matthew, He met the two Marys on the morning 
of the day of his resurrection, and bade them "go tell my.breth- 
ren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me." 
(xxviii, 10.) "Then the eleven disciples went away into Gal- 
ilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them," (v. 16;) 
and after receiving from Him a command to teach and baptize, 
the narrative ends. Is it not very remarkable, if this was the 
first Christian Sabbath, that we find no intimation of it here, but 
on the contrary an order sent to the disciples, which they seem 
to have straightway obeyed, to set out on a journey of more than 
fifty miles ? Only one meeting with the disciples after the resur- 
rection is recorded, and that, being in a far off mountain, can 
hardly be supposed to have occurred on Sunday. In short, there 
is no intimation in Matthew's narrative that the risen Jesus met 
His disciples at all on the first day of the week. 

According to Mark, the two Marys and Salome received the 
instruction to tell. the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee from the 
young man in a long, white garment. A little later in the day 
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene alone, who went and told the 
disciples that He was alive, (xvi, 10 ;) afterward He appeared to 
two of His disciples as they went into the country, (v. 12;) and 
lastly, to the eleven as they sat at meat, (?;. 14.) The three 
appearances seem to have occurred on the same day; aud not ouly 

31 



32 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I 

is there no indication of the special observance of that day, but 
quite the contrary ; for two of the disciples were journeying into 
the country, an act entirely inconsistent with the keeping of a 
Sabbath, and Jesus appears to have kept them company. The 
meeting of the eleven at meat would seem to have been in the 
evening, (John xx, 19, ) which, according to the Jewish division 
of time, was the beginning of another day. So there is no inti- 
mation in Mark's narrative of the observance of the first day of 
the week. 

According to Luke, the two Marys, Joanna, and other women, 
having visited the empty sepulchre, went and told the fact to the 
eleven, (xxiv, 9.) Then that same day, as two of the disciples were 
going to the village of Emmaus, (v. 18,) a distance of seven and a 
half miles, Jesus drew near and walked with them ; and when they 
came to the village " He made as though He would have gone 
further," (v. 28,) but they constrained Him to take supper with 
them, the day being " far spent;" after which they returned to 
Jerusalem, where they met the rest of the eleven and others 
gathered together. But presently Jesus himself appeared among 
them, (v. 36.) Here we have the fact of Jesus and two of the 
disciples traveling a distance of fourteen miles, which is adverse 
to the recognition, even by Jesus himself, of the sacredness of 
the day. Nor did He meet the eleven disciples until late in the 
evening, which was the second day of the week ; for it is not to 
be supposed that the disciples, who were all Jews, had suddenly 
discarded the Jewish division of time, by which the day began at 
sunset. Moreover, there is nothing to show that this meeting of 
the disciples was extraordinary, or more than accidental. The 
two disciples appear to have returned from Emmaus on purpose 
to tell the rest that Jesus was alive, so that their attendance at 
least was accidental ; and in spite of the information that the other 
nine had received of the resurrection from these two, as well as 
from the women, His appearance among them was a surprise, and 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 66 

with difficulty did He persuade them that He was not a spirit. 
Then He led them out to Bethany, (v. 50,) whence He was car- 
ried up into heaven. Luke, like Mark, mentions but this one 
meeting of Christ with His disciples, and every circumstance 
recorded is opposed to the recognition of the day of the resurrec- 
tion as a Sabbath. 

According to John, Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, 
(xx, 14,) who went and told the disciples, (v. 18.) "Then the 
same day at evening/' ten of the eleven disciples being assembled, 
Jesus came among them, (v. 19.) This meeting was not on the 
first but the second day of the week, as we have already seen, 
and the appearance of Jesus among the ten was a surprise. He 
convinced His incredulous disciples that He was alive; but they 
could not afterward convince the absent Thomas of the fact. So, 
"after eight days," when the eleven were assembled, Jesus ap- 
peared again among them, (v. 26,) apparently for the sole pur- 
pose of convincing Thomas. Admitting that " after eight days" 
means one week, which is disputed by learned theologians, it is 
certain that this second meeting, which is mentioned by John 
only, was, like the first, on the second day of the week. John 
mentions a third appearance of Jesus to the disciples when they 
were fishing, (xxi, 3, 4,) which of course could not have been 
on a Sabbath. 

So, then, there is not the slightest testimony in any of the four 
Gospels to the observance of Sunday as a Sabbath. Surely, if 
the day was thenceforth to be hallowed, there must have been 
some intimation of it by at least one of the Evangelists; but on 
the contrary, every recorded circumstance is against it. 

Here we might rest the case, for if Christ did not institute a 
Christian Sabbath, what authority had His Apostles, much less 
their successors, to do it ? But waiving that objection, let us turn 
to the Acts of the Apostles and remaining books of the New Tes- 
tament, and see if they contain any warrant for the sanctification 
of Sunday. 



34 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH: 

The first nineteen chapters of Acts contain no reference what- 
ever to the first day of the week. On the other hand, we there 
have a history of twenty-five years of Paul's ministry, in which 
he constantly preached in the synagogues on the Sabbath-day of 
the Jews, showing that if he had any regard for one day as holier 
than another it was the seventh day. But there is no intimation 
even of this, and many passages in his epistles are clearly against 
the observance of any Sabbath. (Rom. xiv, 5; Gal. iv, 10; 
Col. ii, 16.) 

The first and only mention of the first day of the week in Acts 
is in chap, xx, 7, where it is said the disciples came together on 
that day to break bread, and Paul, ready to depart on the mor- 
row, preached to them till midnight; i. e., six hours into the sec- 
ond day of the week. But after midnight they again broke bread, 
(y. 11,) and Paul talked till daybreak; i. e., ten hours or more 
into the second day of the week. But if, as may be the fact, this 
meeting was on Saturday evening, which was the beginning of 
the Jewish first day, then it is certain that Paul, in taking his 
departure in the morning, traveled on Sunday. The fact of the 
disciples coming together to break bread on the first day of the 
week has no significance as to the sacredness of that day, because 
it was a daily practice, as we read in Acts ii, 46. So there is 
nothing in Acts xx, 7, to indicate the special observance of Sun- 
day. 

The last and only other mention of the first day of the week 
in the New Testament is in 1st Corinthians, xvi, 2, where every 
one is exhcrted to lay by him in store on that day for a collection. 
Nothing further can be inferred from this than that on that par- 
ticular day the Corinthian Christians, like the Galatians, were to 
lay by their contributions — reserved, perhaps, from the earnings 
of the past week. 

The only mention of the " Lord's day" in the New Testament 
is in Pievelations i, 10: "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. o-> 

Granting that by this was meant the first day of the week, and 

not a particular day of the year, (which was possible,) it proves 

nothing as to the sacredness of Sunday, especially as it was the 

custom in the early Christian church to meet on other days as 

well as Sunday for religious purposes. To establish this fact we 

produce Neander, author of the most profound and exhaustive 

history of the Christian church yet produced, who, in speaking 

of the observance of festive days in the first three centuries, (vol. 

i, second edition, p 402,) says: 

" Sunday was distinguished as a day of joy. . . . The Friday of 
each week, this day in particular, and the Thursday, were specially con- 
secrated to the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ and of the prepara- 
tory circumstances. On those days there were meetings for prayer and 
fasting till three o'clock in the afternoon. . . . Those Churches, how- 
ever, which were composed of Jewish Christians, though they admitted 
with the rest the festival of Sunday, yet retained also the Sabbath." 

xlgain, in vol. iii, p. 398: 

'• Yet the most distinguished Church teachers of this period continue still 
to express the purely Christian idea of the relation of the festivals to the 
whole Christian life. . . . Thus Jerome asserts that, considered in a 
purely Christian point of view, all days are alike, and every day is for the 
Christian a Friday, . . . every day a Sunday. . . . Chrysostom 
delivered a discourse at Antioch, in which he showed that those who never 
attended church except on the principal festivals adopted the Jewish point 
of view ; that on the other hand the Christian celebration of festivals was 
not necessarily restricted to certain times, but embraced the whole life. 
. . . In like manner the Church historian Socrates remarks that Christ 
and the Apostles, conformably to Christian freedom, gave no law respect- 
ing feasts, but left everything open here to the free expression of feelings. 
. . Socrates mentions it as a peculiarity of the Alexandrian Church, 
that on Wednesday and Friday the Holy Scriptures were read in the Church 
and expounded by homilies ; and in general the whole service conducted 
as on Sunday, the celebration of the communion excepted. This custom 
probably vanished by degrees in most of the Churches; only Friday con- 
tinued to be consecrated to the memory of Christ's passion. The Emperor 
Constantine, as Sozomon relates, enacted a law that on Friday, as on Sun- 
day, there should be a suspension of business at the courts and in other 
civil offices, so that the day might be devoted with less interruption to the 
purpose of devotion. At Antioch the communion was celebrated on Fri- 
day as well as on Sunday. Also, at Constantinople, Friday was observed 
by the more serious Christians as a day of penitence and fasting, conse- 
crated to the memory of Christ's passion, and the Sacrament of the Sup- 
per was distributed. ... In several of the Eastern Churches the Sab- 
bath was celebrated nearly after the same manner as Sunday." 



36 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH '. 

In Moshei m's Church History (cent, ii, part ii, cli. iv, sec. 
8) the observance of four days of the week by the Christians of 
the second century is mentioned, namely : the first, the fourth, 
the sixth, and the seventh — the fourth being the day on which 
Christ was betrayed, and the sixth day on which he was crucified- 

In Jeremy Taylor's treatise on the Sabbath ( Whole Works, vol. 
xii,) he says that the primitive Christians continued to meet 
publicly on the Jewish Sabbath until the time of the Council of 
Laodicea, (A. D. 368,) when the observance of that day was ex- 
pressly forbidden in these words : " Christians must not keep a 
rest Sabbath, but work upon that day, preferring the Lord's day 
before it. If they will rest on that day let them rest as Chris- 
tians ; but if they rest as Jews, let them be accursed." 

It is needless to cumulate proof of the fact that the primitive 
Christians were accustomed to meet for religious purposes on other 
days beside Sunday. There can be no question of it. Indeed, 
if any day of the week was more generally used than another 
for Christian worship in the first three centuries it was the sev- 
enth day, or Jewish Sabbath. 

The " Lord's day" mentioned in Rev. i, 10, probably meant 
{lie if great day of God Almighty," (xvi, 14,) or " the great day 
of His wrath," (vi, 17,) and the proper rendering of the passage 
would be, "I was in spirit on the Lord's day," i. e., the day of 
God's wrath. At all events it is mere conjecture that it meant 
Sunday, and it would be a better conjecture that it meant the old 
Sabbath. The date of the book of Revelation is given in the 
margin of our Bibles as A. D. 96, but modern criticism fixes it 
about A. D. 70. The earliest use of the expression " Lord's 
day" we have been able to find in the writings of the Fathers is 
in the Miscellanies of Clement of Alexandria, (B. v, p. 284; 
Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. xii,) the date of which is assigned be- 
tween A. D. 194 and 202. Eusebius, however, (B. iv, ch. 23,) 
quotes it from an epistle (not now extant) of Dionysius, who was 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 3'T 

made bisLop of Corinth, A. D. 170. Assuming that Eusebius 

quoted it correctly, we have but these two occurrences of it in the 

writings of the Fathers of the first two centuries, unless what is 

known as the long epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, which 

is generally regarded as spurious, was forged before the year 200. 

That epistle, which is an enlargement of the short one, contains 

these words : 

" Let us, therefore, no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, 
and rejoice in days of idleness, . . . but let every one of you keep the 
Sabbath after a spiritual manner. . . . And after the observance of 
the Sabbath let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day as a festival ; 
the resurrection day, the queen and chief of days." (Ch. ix.) 

The short epistle, which, though questionable, is believed by 
some to be genuine, and therefore written about the end of the 
first century, also contains the expression " Lord's day " in our 
translations, but not in the original Greek. In Archbishop 
Wake's translation we read, "No longer observing Sabbaths, but 
keeping the Lord's day." (Ch. iii, 3.) The Greek reads, kata 
Icuriahen zoen zontes, and the rendering should be, "living 
according to the Lord's life." This, too, makes far better sense 
of the whole passage, thus: "No longer observing Sabbaths, but 
living according to the Lord's life, in which also our life is sprung 
up," &c. 

It therefore appears that until about the close of the second cen- 
tury the expression " Lord's day" occurs but barely once in any 
existing manuscript, namely, the Book of Revelations ; and it is 
presumptuous to assume that it meant a Christian Sabbath. Nor 
is the meaning of the expression as used by Clement of Alexan- 
dria, A. D. 194-202, any more certain ; for in repeating it 
(B. vii, ch. xii) he seems to regard any day as the Lord's day. 
Furthermore, it is a remarkable fact that the most learned advo- 
cates of the Christian Sabbath, in applying Rev. i, 10, to Sunday, 
never refer to any writer earlier than the fourth century who 
^* quotes it. Hence there may be just ground for the suspicion that 



38 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH : 

the passage was interpolated in that Book about or prior to the 
time of Constantine. 

Still it is conceded that Sunday had begun to be observed in a 
special manner about the middle of the second century. Justin 
Martyr, in his Apology, written about this time, speaks of the 
celebration of the "day of the Sun, because on this first day God 
made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.*' 
But no observance of Sunday is to be traced in any writer of the 
first century ; and when the observance began, the laws of the 
Sabbath were not transferred to Sunday ; nor were they so applied 
at all until, says Neander, "perhaps at the end of the second 
century a false application of this kind had begun to take place." 
(First Edition, vol. i, sec. 3.) The observance of the day seems 
to have grown up gradually from about A. D. 140 to A. D. 321, 
when the Emperor Constantine issued the following edict : 

"Let all judges and people of the town and all the various trades be 
suspended on the venerable day of the Sun, [die Soils.'] Those who live 
in the country, however, may freely and without fault attend to the culti- 
vation of their fields, (since it often happens that no other day may be so 
suitable for sowing grain and planting the vine;) lest, with the loss of 
favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by Divine Providence 
should be destroyed." ( Cod. Justin., lib. iii, tit. 12, sees. 2, 3.) 

Tn this edict the day is not called the " Lord's day," but ' ' Sun- 
day," or literally the "Sun's day," which was the Pagan desig- 
nation. And not only did Constantine ordain the observance of 
Sunday, but also of Friday. Says Eusebius, in his Life of Con- 
stantine, Book iv, chap. 18 : 

" He commanded that through all the Roman empire they should forbear 
to do any work upon the Lord's day, and that they should reverence the 
day immediately before the Sabbath, in regard to our Saviour's memorable 
and divine actions performed on those days." 

It is the Christian historian Eusebius, and not Constantine, 
who here uses the expression " Lord's day " Sylvester, who was 
bishop of Rome while Constantine was emperor, in order, as it 
is stated, to give more solemnity to the first day of the week, 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 39 

changed its name from Sunday, which Constantine had given it, 
to the more imposing one of the "Lord's day." {Lucius' Eccl. 
Hist., cent, v, p. 470.) 

The Rev. James G-ilfillan, in his able work on the Sabbath, 
indorsed and extensively distributed by the New York Sabbath 
Committee in 1865, concedes that " the Fathers of the first three 
centuries believed that the Jewish Sabbath-day had been set 
aside," (p. 377,) but labors to prove that they recognized the 
Divine appointment of the first day of the week, in place of the 
seventh, as a "day of rest and worship," citing several of the 
early Fathers. Let us take them up in their order, and see what 
they prove. 

All that Clement of Rome (A. D. 68-97) says is, that " offer- 
ings and sacred services " were commanded by our Lord to be 
rendered " at appointed times and hours." 

" Barnabus, disclaiming the old Sabbath-day," says Gilfillan, 
"declares the eighth day to be its acceptable substitute." The 
epistle of Barnabus is unquestionably spurious, and its date can- 
not be fixed earlier than A. D. 120. {Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. i.) 
Here is what the writer of that epistle says : 

"Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all 
things will be finished. 'And He rested on the seventh day.' This mean- 
eth : when His Sou, coming [again,] shall destroy the time of the wicked 
man and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the 
stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. . . . Further, He 
says to them : ' Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot endure.' 
Ye perceive how He speaks. Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to 
me, but that is which I have made, [namely, this,] when giving rest to all 
things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day; that is, a beginning 
of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joy ful- 
ness, the day, also, on which Jesus rose again from the dead, and, when 
He had manifested Himself, ascended into the heavens." {Ante-Nicene Lib., 
vol. i, ch. xv ) 

Whatever the character of the observance of the eighth day 
may have been when this epistle was written, it is clear that it 
was not a day of rest, and the "joyfulness" of its observance 



40 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH '. 

implies that it was a festive day. It was, therefore, by no means 
an " acceptable substitute," as Gilfillan asserts, for the " old Sab- 
bath-day." 

Justin Martyr (A. D. 140-165) is claimed as the next wit- 
ness for the substitution of Sunday for the Jewish Sabbath, be- 
cause he says that the Christians assembled for worship in his 
time on the day of the Sun, " because on this first day God made 
the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead." 
(Apology, ch. lxvii.) This is a most unfortunate passage to prove 
a Sabbath, for it denies all possible connection between Sunday 
and the fourth commandment. Nothing is said by Justin about 
observing Sunday as a day of rest in obedience to the law of the 
Decalogue, and we have already seen (p. 20) that he says there 
is no more need of Sabbaths now. 

The testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, is based on the state- 
mont of Eusebius (B. iv, ch. 26) that he wrote a book on the 
subject of the Lord's day in A. D. 170, or later. This is a mis- 
translation; in the original Greek it is Kuriakes logos — "Lord's 
discourse" 

That of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, (A. D. 170 or later,) 
is, that Eusebius, in the fourth century, quotes him as having 
written, " We have passed the Lord's holy day, in which we have 
read your epistle." It is second-hand testimony, and amounts 
to little or nothing if true. 

That of Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, (A. D. 168-188,) is 
that he " appeals to the observance of the Lord's day as a cus- 
tom in the churches." Eusebius, to whom reference is made, 
states no such thing in regard to Theophilus of Antioch, but he 
does speak of a Theophilus, Bishop of Cesarea, (A. D. 180-192,) 
who presided at a council which enacted " that the mystery of 
our Lord's resurrection should be celebrated on no other day than 
the Lord's day." (B. v., ch. 23.) This is also second-hand 
testimony, and of little or no weight if true. 

+ 6 irtpi KVpt**$i ^oyoi- 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 41 

The testimony of Irenaeus (A. D. 177-202) is in his saying 
that the ' ' true sanctification of the Sabbath consists in doing 
works of mercy;" and that the commandments of the Decalogue 
" continue with us, extended and enlarged, not abolished." (B. 
iv, ch. 16.) But in the very next sentence Irengeus calls these 
commandments "laws of bondage," and adds: i( These things, 
therefore, which were given for bondage and for a sign to them 
He cancelled by the new covenant of liberty. But He has in- 
creased and widened those laws which are natural, and noble, and 
common to all." Furthermore, in section 1 of the same chapter, 
he quotes Exod. xxxi, 13, and Ezek. xx, 12, to prove that the 
Sabbath was a sign, and says : "The Sabbaths taught that we 
should continue, day by day, in God's service." Again, in sec- 
tion 2, he says : 

"And that man was not justified by these things, but that they were 
given as a sign to the people, this fact shows— that Abraham himself, with- 
out circumcision and without the observance of Sabbaths, 'believed God 
and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend 
of God.' . . . Moreover, all the rest of the multitude of those righteous 
men who lived before Abraham, and of those patriarchs who preceded 
Moses, were justified independently of the things above mentioned and 
without the law of Moses. As also Moses himself says to the people in 
Deuteronomy: ' The Lord thy God formed a covenant in Horeb. The 
Lord formed not this covenant with your fathers, but for you.' " 

Clement of Alexandria (A. D. 189-202) is quoted by Gilfillan 
as saying, " The eighth day appears rightly to be named the sev- 
enth, and to be the true Sabbath." This, if correctly rendered, 
would be testimony of some weight, but in the recent translation 
( Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. xii, B. vi, The Fourth Commandment) it, 
is rendered thus : " The eighth day may possibly turn out to be 
properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and 
the latter properly the Sabbath." So the passage proves nothing 
in favor of Sunday Sabbatarianism. 

Tcrtuliian (A. D. 193-220) is cited in proof of the sanctity 
of the Lord's day. In his time it is quite possible, as Neander 



42 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I 

intimates, that a false application of the laws of the Sabbath to 
Sunday began to prevail. Tertullian discusses the question of 
lineeling in prayer on the Sabbath and on the day of the Lord's 
resurrection, (not " Lord's day/' as Gilfillan quotes it,) and says 
that on the last-mentioned day we "ought to guard not only 
against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude ; defer- 
ring even our business lest we give any place to the devil." And 
he adds : " Similarly, too, in the period of Pentecost, which period 
we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation. But who 
would hesitate every day to prostrate himself before God, at least 
in the first prayer, with which we enter on the daylight?" (Ante- 
JVicene Lib., vol. xi, ch. xxiii, On Prayer.) We have seen, fur- 
thermore, that Tertullian speaks of Sunday as " a day of festiv- 
ity," and of observing " a Sabbath from all servile work always, 
not only every seventh day, but through all time." (P. 22.) 
He is certainly, therefore, far from being a witness in favor of 
Sabbatarianism. 

All that Minutius Felix (A. D. 210) says on the subject, as 
quoted by Gilfillan, is this: " On a solemn day persons of both 
sexes and of every age assemble at a feast, with all their children, 
sisters, and mothers." The scene described by this enemy of 
Christianity, if at all truthful, is one that does not in the least 
comport with the observance of a holy day. (Octavius of Minu- 
tius Felix, ch. ix, Anti-Nicene Lib., vol. xiii.) 

Origen, who wrote about A. D. 230. while he repudiates the 
"Jewish Sabbath observances," commends the "Christian ob- 
servance of the Sabbath," in abstaining from secular duties to 
attend to spiritual exercises. Here is the first witness of any 
weight in favor of modern Sabbatarianism. He concludes his 
instructions by saying : " This is the observance of the Christian 
Sabbbath" — Sabbati Christiani. Here, 200 years after the cruci- 
fixion, we find the first use of the term "Christian Sabbath." 
We believe not a solitary writer can be found prior to Origen who 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 43 

ever called Sunday the Sabbath, and even he seems to have ap- 
plied the term only by way of contrast. Nor did any one of them, 
Origen included, claim the fourth commandment as authorizing 
Sunday observance. If we are perchance mistaken in regard to 
these facts, we will fall back ou the statement of Richard Baxter, 
who, in speaking of Sunday, says: " The ancient churches called 
it constantly by the name of ' Lord's day,' and never called it the 
Sabbath but when they spoke analogically by allusion to the Jew- 
ish Sabbath." (Baxter's Works, vol. hi, " On the Lord's Day" 
ch. 7.) Gilfillan erroneously makes Tertullian speak of the duty 
of abstaining from work on Sunday, (p. 378,) when it was the 
Jewish Sabbath that Tertullian was discussing. 

The next one of the Fathers cited is Cyprian, Bishop of Car- 
thage, (A. D 253,) who says: "The eighth day, that is, the 
■rst day after the Sabbath, and the Lord's day, went before in 
the figure; which figure ceased when, by-and-by, the truth came 
and spiritual circumcision was given." (Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. 
viii, Ep. lviii.) Cyprian, in this chapter, discusses solely the 
question of infant baptism — whether or not it should be admin- 
istered before the eighth day — and makes no allusion whatever to 
any observance of the Lord's day. 

To complete the proof of " the ordinance of a weekly season 
of rest and devotion " in the first three centuries, Gilfillan says 
that Coinmodian, a Christian poet, (A. D. 270,) mentions the 
Lord's day, and that Victorinus, Bishop of Petau, (A. D. 290,) 
speaks of the custom of fasting on the seventh day, lest they 
"should seem to observe the Sabbath of the Jews." This quo- 
tation is neither correct nor complete. It reads: " Lest we should 
fcpear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ Him- 
self, the Lord of the Sabbath, says by His prophets that 'His 
Foul hateth;' and which Sabbath He, in His body, abolished." 
Furthermore, Victorinus says that the "true and just Sabbath 
should be observed in the seventh millenary of years, when Christ 



44 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH '. 

with His elect shall reign." (Ante- Nicene Lib., vol. xviii, p 
390.) 

Such is the meagre and barren testimony upon which the ex- 
istence of a Christian Sabbath is vainly sought to be traced 
through the first three centuries. The proof is entirely wanting, 
with the possible exception of the uncertain testimony of Origen. 
Modern Sabbatarians may trace the first use of their favorite term 
11 Christian Sabbath" to him, whom they have facetiously styled 
the " Origin of all heresies." That Sunday was observed as a 
festival from a very early period is not denied, nor that in the 
latter part of the second century it began to be called the Lord's 
day. But, says Jeremy Taylor — 

"It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because 
they for almost 300 years together kept that day which was in that com- 
mandment ; but they did it also without any opinion of prime obligation, 
and therefore they did not suppose it moral. . . . They affirmed it to 
be ceremonial and no part of the moral law, as is to be seen in Irenaeus, 
Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian, and others before quoted." 

Says the learned Heylyn, as quoted by Bannerman, (Modem 
Sabbath Examined, p. 139 :) 

" Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord's day stands — on custom 
first, and voluntary consecration of it to religious meetings ; that custom 
continued by the authority of the Church of God, which tacitly approved 
the same, and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian princes through- 
out their empires." 

This same author, Heylyn, as we have already seen, (p. 27,) 
says that more than a thousand years passed after Christ's ascen- 
sion before the Lord's day had attained that state in which it 
stood in his time, (A. D. 1660.) and that for " 1,200 years we 
find no Sabbath." Until some time after the Reformation, in the 
sixteenth century, Sunday was uniformly regarded throughout 
Christendom as a weekly festival or holiday. How it grew up to 
be a holy day will appear from the extracts subjoined. Says Ban- 
nerman, (p. 143 :) 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY. 45 

" In 1547 Edward VI thus directed the clergy : 'AH parsons, vicars, and 
f urates shall teach and declare unto their parishioners that they may, with 
a safe and quiet conscience, in the time of harvest, labor upon the holy and 
festival days and save that which God hath sent.' . . . The festival 
da\-s mentioned included, it is well known, all Sundays in the year. These 
directions were adopted by Elizabeth in 1559, adding merely to the words 
' quiet conscience, ' ' after their common prayer.' The act of 1552 declared 
it ' lawful for every husbandman, laborer, fisherman, &c, upon the holy 
days aforesaid, in harvest lime or any other time in the year, when neces- 
sity shall require, to labor, ride, fish, or work any kind of work, at their 
free wills and pleasure.' " 

" It was shortly after this that the doctrine that the prescriptions of the 
fourth commandment have been transferred to the first day of the week 
was introduced into this country, [England.] It has been traced to Dr. 
Bownd, who published a book upon the subject in the year 1594[5.] . . . 
This new doctrine was for a long time strenuously opposed by the leading 
divines of the English church ; it was warmly contended for, however, by 
the Puritans, and shortly became one of the most distinguishing tenets of 
that party." 

Says Dr. Heylyn, in his History of the Presbyterians, p. 24 : 

"He [Calvin] esteemed no otherwise of the Lord's day Sabbath than of 
an ecclesiastical constitution appointed by our ancestors in the place of the 
Sabbath, and, therefore, alterable from one day to another at the Church's 
pleasure, followed therein by all the churches of his party, who thereupon 
permit all lawful recreations and many works of necessary labor on the day 
itself, provided that the people be not thereby hindered from giving their 
attendance in the Church at the times appointed ; insomuch that in Ge- 
neva, itself, all manner of exercises, as running, vaulting, leaping, shoot- 
ing, and many others of that nature, are as indifferently indulged on the 
Lord's day as on any other. How far the English Puritans departed from 
their mother Church, both in doctrine and practice, with reference to this 
particular, we shall see hereafter." 

Then on p. 337 he shows how the Puritan Sabbath was estab- 
lished : 

"The brethren had tried many ways to suppress them [the ancient fes- 
tivals] formerly, as having too much in them of the superstitions of the 
Church of Rome, but they had found no way successful till they fell on 
this, which was to set on foot some new Sabbath doctrine, and, by advanc- 
ing the authority of the Lord's day Sabbath, to cry down the rest. Some 
had been hammering at this anvil ten years before, and had procured the 
mayor and aldermen of London to present a petition to the Queen for the 
suppression of all plays and interludes on the Sabbath (as they pleased to 
call it) within the liberties of their city, the gaining of which point made 
them hope for more, and secretly to retail those speculations which after- 
ward [Dr.~\ Bownd sold in gross by publishing his treatise on the Sabbath, 
which came out in this year, 1595." 



46 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I 

" Now for the doctrine. It was marshalled in these positions ; that is to 
say, that the commandment of sanctifying every Sabbath-day, as in the 
Mosaical decalogue, is natural, moral, and perpetual ; that when all other 
things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken 
away, this stands — the observation of the Sabbath. And though Jewish 
and Rabbinical this doctrine was, it carried a fair show of piety, at the 
least, in the opinion of the common people, and such as did not stand to 
examine the true grounds thereof, but took it upon the appearance; such 
as did judge, not by the workmanship of the stuff, but the gloss and color, 
in which.it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only 
to give way unto it, but without more ado to abet the same, till in the end 
and in very little time it grew the most bewitching error and most popu- 
lar infatuation that ever was infused into the people of England." 

Coleridge also bears testimony to the modern origin of the Chris- 
tian Sabbath. Commenting upon the passage which he quotes 
from Luther, (p. 22,) he says: 

11 The English reformers took the same view of the day as Luther and 
the early Church. But, unhappily, our Church, in the reigns of James 
and Charles First, was so identified with the undue advancement of the 
royal prerogative that the puritanical Judaism of the Presbyterians was 
too well seconded by the patriots of the nation in resisting the wise efforts 
of the Church to prevent the incipient alteration of the character of the 
day of rest. After the restoration the bishops and clergy in general 
adopted the view tafcen and enforced by their enemies." 

The astounding spread of the new Sabbath doctrine is attested 
also by Gilfillan himself, who quotes Fuller, the historian, as say- 
ing : '" It is almost incredible how taking this doctrine was. . . . 
For some years together Dr. Bownd alone carried the garland 
away, none offering openly to oppose, and not so much as a feather 
of a quill in print did wag against him." (P. 70.) The publi- 
cation of Dr. Bownd's treatise, says Gilfillan, was "the com- 
mencement of the earliest Sabbatic contest, entitled to the name, 
in the Christian Church," (p. 66 ;) and the author goes on to give a 
history of the agitation, which culminated in the incorporation of 
the new Sabbath doctrine in the Westminster Confession of Faith, 
agreed upon in 1643, approved by the General Assembly of the 
Church of Scotland in 1647, and ratified by act of Parliament in 
1649. The doctrine was introduced into Holland by some Eng- 
lish Puritans, but with poor success. John Kobinson, pastor of 



ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY, 4T 

the Pilgrim Fathers, left England in 1608, and settled in Hol- 
land, whence in 1620 he and his flock came to America. "Of 
the various reasons for the resolution to quit their adopted coun- 
try for America," says Gilfillan, " one was that they could not 
bring the Dutch to observe the Lord's day as a Sabbath." (P. 
91.) "The controversy," says Hengstenberg, {Ibid., p. 117,) 
" was kept up in Holland till the eighteenth century, but with 
great calmness. However, the more liberal views gradually ad- 
vanced, and became more and more prevalent throughout the Re- 
formed Churches, with the exception of Great Britain." 

Thus we see where the so-called Christian Sabbath originated, 
when it was instituted, and by whom it was ordained. Its origin 
was not in Judea, but in Great Britain ; it was instituted not 
in the first century, but in the seventeenth; it was ordained not 
by Christ or His Apostles, but by the Puritans. 

ORIGIN AND ABROGATION OF THE JEWISH SABBATH. 

The origin of the seventh-day Sabbath is not involved in the 
present discussion, but the weight of evidence, as well as of Chris- 
tian authority, fixes it after the exodus of the Israelites from 
Egypt. Says Calmet, in his Dictionary of the Bible, first pub- 
lished by him in 1730 : 

"The greater part of the Divines and Commentators hold that the ben- 
ediction and sanctification of the Sabbath mentioned by Moses in the be- 
ginning of Genesis signifies only that appointment then made of the sev- 
enth day, to be afterward solemnized and sanctified by the Jews." 

The learned Dr. Gill, in commenting on Gen. ii, 3, "And God 
blessed the seventh day," &c, remarks: 

" These words may be read in a parenthesis, as containing an account of 
a fact that was done not at the beginning of the world and on the seventh 
<lav of it, but of what had been done in the time of Moses, who wrote this 
after the giving of the law of the Sabbath." 

Throughout all history we discover no trace of a Sabbath among 
the nations of antiquity. Says Theodoretus, a Christian Father, 



48 SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH. 

(A. D. 429 :) "No other nation beside the Jews ever observed 
the Sabbatic rest." (Comment, in Ezek. xx.) Passages from 
Josephus, Philo, and other ancieut writers, have been mistrans- 
lated to support a contrary theory. The Christian Fathers uni- 
formly regarded the Sabbath as a ceremonial institution peculiar 
to the Jews, and as having been abrogated by the advent of Christ, 
with no other day substituted therefor. Such also were the views 
of the most illustrious reformers and many of the most brilliant 
ecclesiastical writers, besides those already quoted. That the 
Apostle Paul taught the same doctrine is clear from Col. ii, 16, 
17; Gal. iv, 10, 11, and Rom. xiv, 5. His teachings in this 
respect are in harmony with the adjudication of the first great 
Council of the Church, A.D.52, which decreed that the keeping 
of the law, with the exception of three (or four) things named, two 
of them of a moral nature and the other ceremonial, was a burden 
not to be laid upon the Gentiles. (Acts xv, 24, 28, 29.) The 
observance of the Sabbath was not one of the articles enjoined. 
The Gentile converts knew no Sabbath, and it is incredible that 
that question should have been ignored if Sabbath-keeping was 
an essential part of Christianity. Therefore, by the formal de- 
cree of that first Church Council, the Sabbath was wholly and 
unequivocally abrogated. 



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